A/N: How are you guys doing? It's been a while, hasn't it? It may look like I'm rushing things but no HAHA! It's just that the flow of events are just at the peak where there's so much trouble going on. Sorry that it looked like things are going hasty and there is no end to the trouble.

Hoped you liked that little NH moment and there is a flashback in this chapter. It's in italics.

HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS CHAPTER AND STAY PATIENT FOR THE CHAPTERS TO COME :) LOVE YA'LL.

Beginning of Trouble

For what seemed like a hundred and one minutes of Naruto's televised viewing of his movie, he only realized halfway that his companion was leaning on his shoulder, sleeping soundly with her face snuggled onto his sleeves. Hinata had a contented look over her face. Naruto's eyes wandered over to her hands and gently picked the empty mug she had been holding, only to place it quietly on the coffee table beside the couch. It didn't matter whether the weight Hinata was putting on his shoulder was starting to ache.

When Naruto yawned, he thought it was cue to fall asleep too. He would have carried Hinata to the guest room where Minori had slept but he didn't want to bother waking her up. The blonde only adjusted the girl's head atop of his shoulder to make himself much more relaxed and careful that he wouldn't wake her, before he reached for the remote control with his foot, aiming to press a button to switch the television off.

Naruto yawned again when he tried to push her hair away from covering Hinata's face. He smiled when Hinata uttered a few words in her sleep. He made another yawn before the weight of tiredness went over on his eyes, tempting him to fall asleep.

And when he did, Naruto didn't notice that he was leaning on Hinata's head cozily throughout of his slumber.

"Neji nii-san," Hinata smiled politely to him, "Thank you for accompanying me today."

"It's alright," Neji waved his hands off as the two of them walked from the elevator and towards the front door where the agent was bringing them to. As the agent was explaining to them about the building's good points, Neji teased about Hinata being single when he pointed it out again. She began whining and Neji kept repeated her relationship status, unaware that the agent kept quiet to himself when he realized none of them was listening to him.

As they approached a front door and knocked on it, they were greeted by huge man with greying long messy hair tied into a traditional ponytail.

"You're already here, huh?" The man grinned at them as he made way for the visitors into his home. The apartment was small with only two bedrooms. Cardboard boxes were either sealed packed with the owner's belongings and stacked with the rest of boxes or were halfway done. The old man must have been ready to leave since he resumed to packing up in his living room. In the midst of mess of the packed boxes, the agent tried his best to show that the apartment was more appealing than how it currently was. After a round through the rooms, Hinata and Neji got back to the living room to where the owner was. He was sipping on some of his oolong tea as he continued to stash away his belongings into boxes. He smiled at Hinata's and Neji's direction before he went back to packing up.

The agent went over to talk about the seemingly beautiful view of the city seen with the large window at the living room. It displayed the glorious high summer day and how clouds that drifted by. It was the highlight of the apartment, the main attraction of it.

Hinata was considering on prices and sorts with the agent. The owner ceased whatever he was doing when the agent called up to him, before try continued discussing over matters. Neji just stayed closed to Hinata, listening word for word and observing every inch of the house. Not that he was satisfied with the apartment but, he wasn't able to argue since Hinata seemed to have grown a little attachment to the home already.

The old man talked proudly about the apartment and how he needed to leave it soon. He was laughing when the agent nudged his shoulder for talking bad about the other visitors that visited his apartments. The man complimented Hinata for choosing his apartment. He continued yapping, making Neji wonder when he would stop.

"Um...How should I address you?" Hinata asked when she had the chance to clarify.

The man paused slowly before he smiled at Hinata politely, "Call me Jiraiya."

And just seconds after he said that, a shot was fired from outside the apartment and it smashed through the enormous window next to them into pieces from the impact. Shattered shards of glass flew straight at them. Neji sprinted over to cover Hinata with his jacket but a large sharp shard aimed straight for his bare arm, cutting through his muscles and getting him to feel the immerse piercing pain. He was paralyzed hurt badly and vulnerably helpless. When they thought it was over, there were more shots being blown at their direction, only forcing them to stay down. Electrical appliances started to topple one by one onto the floor when the bullets had hit them. When the flat LCD television hanging from the wall fell abruptly, it caused a blast of flames.

It happened so fast and everything seemed to topple everywhere, causing it to catch fire quickly. Fortunately, the bullets had ceased and whoever was behind it must have fled.

Hinata sniffed, still lost in the haze of smoke. Her eyes fluttered open, stinging as she tried to clear her sight. She immediately started coughing. It took only an instant to realize that the room was filled with smoke. Smoke meant fire, and only did she realize that everything around her caught fire quickly. She darted her eyes to look for Neji but the smoke was too thick for her see.

And she disliked it how she felt weak, how she wasn't able to see a thing. She detested the way how the thick smoke had blocked her from helping anyone she was able to.

All she could see were the flames dancing and twisting orange. The door was on fire, the cardboard boxes that contained Jiraiya's belonging were burning rapidly and smoke was billowing for the kitchen in thick clouds. She heard roaring, a sound like a train, heard cracks and pops and splintering, her mind taking it in at once.

It was so loud and she couldn't even hear the sound of her own voice calling out for help. She crawled on all fours, careful not to touch shattered glass and tried to call out for the others. She saw the box Jiraiya was packing his things in awhile ago hidden under his coffee table, unharmed by the flames just yet. She crawled over and when she saw a small reflective light, barely visible through the smoke and where the box was. The wall crawled with fire, flames on the ceiling, moving towards her. She didn't have the time to think and only made her way towards where the coffee table was, where the smoke was less thick.

She prayed inwardly that someone would have called for help in their aid. In the corner of her eye, she saw through the rummage of things that Jiraiya packed and it was photo albums, photo frames and Polaroid photographs. A couple of them were lying on the floor, ready to get burned off by the flames coming towards Hinata.

Hinata coughed as she inhaled more of the smoke, afraid that she might be burned alive before help comes. The fire kept dancing, leaping as spurting towards her. Everything in its path was catching on fire. Hinata kept coughing and she tried to ease away from breathing in anymore of the smoke by covering her nose with her hand. Only then did she realize that a photograph was stuck onto her hand.

There was a sharp clap, loud enough to make her ears ring. When she took a moment to look over her shoulder, she found one of the walls collapsing inwards. A deafening sound of an explosion knocked her over in the scorching blast of air.

She stayed down; lying next to the coffee table and the photograph was still in the palm of her hands. She couldn't have a clear vision of what was on the photograph because seconds later, she had passed out, unaware that Neji was somewhere yelling out her name. Her vision grew dim and the only thing she saw before it faded into darkness was Neji scrambling towards her.

"Hinata!"

"Hinata."

She groaned and tugged into the sheets further. It was weird that her neck felt sore and there was a blinding light shone over her eyes. When she finally fluttered her eyes open, Hinata was greeted by Naruto staring right up at her. The morning light that was flaring up from the living room window amplified the deep royal blue in Naruto's eyes. It was such a deep ocean blue and Hinata couldn't help staring at them. She was still half asleep, not noticing how her actions were getting Naruto to fluster and get his face to turn into a deep shade of red.

"Oi, Hinata…" He averted his eyes away from Hinata and covered his face. He didn't mean to wake her up but, she had been shaking terrifyingly from her sleep that it made Naruto concerned. She must had been having a nightmare and Naruto wanted to ask whether she was fine. But, she woke up half awake and lost, which caused Naruto to feel embarrassed. The fact that she woke up clueless and not aware how she shivered through her sleep had caught Naruto off guard. Hinata's puzzled expression kept replaying in Naruto's head, causing him to turn redder and redder.

Hinata was ready fall back to sleep again when she leaned back on Naruto's shoulder, snaked her hands and looped them around Naruto's arms. He would have calmly fall back to sleep again too if not for the fact that he was this close to Hinata. She might have been the one intruding his personal space without her own knowledge of it but, Naruto knew that he wasn't one to take advantage of it.

He might have been a man he surely, it was enough that he intruded her space the first time they met with a kiss. Naruto might have been a man but he isn't a pervert.

Right?

Naruto was fighting within himself about his pride as a man or being a kind gentleman. When he finally decided and was about to call her name out and wake her up again, the door bell went off suddenly, causing both Hinata and Naruto to jump.

"Naruto-kun?" Hinata turned to Naruto with wide eyes, wondering why she was laying so close to him while Naruto tried to ease her nothing happened. He was explaining that they just fell asleep and that was all but, the door bell kept ringing, annoying Naruto as each second passed without a doubt of the bell ringing continuously. Hinata just nodded when Naruto stared back at her with an apologetic look. His concern for Hinata's nightmare was put on hold and he had to run for the door, greeted by the least person he would have had expected.

"Teme?" Naruto's voice squeaked.

The both of them snickered a little until Sasuke noticed Hinata inside his apartment before the Uchiha nudged Naruto by the elbow with a smirk on his face.

"So, this is why Sakura didn't get a call from her last night," Sasuke darted his eyes at Naruto who was waving his hands everywhere, speechless. Ignoring Naruto's attempts of telling Sasuke wrong, Sasuke hung his arms over Naruto's still aching neck and started congratulating the blonde, "You did good, dude."

"What the hell, Teme!? It's not like that!" Naruto shoved Sasuke away from himself before the blonde shut the front door. He didn't want Hinata to hear anymore of their embarrassing conversation and quickly changed the subject, "What do you want anyway?"

"Sakura wanted me to check on you," Sasuke shrugged, which earned a laugh from Naruto.

"You sure are living off it, huh?" Naruto chuckled, "The High school heartthrob, Sasuke Uchiha, is still being pushed around by the female population."

Sasuke gave a piercing glare at Naruto before Naruto laughed it off. The two continued to bicker in the hallway, unaware that there was someone curious over their loud uproar. Minori peeped through the front door of Sakura and Sasuke's apartment, curious with their commotion. When the little boy's eyes landed over to the blonde, Minori flung the door open and sprinted quickly towards Naruto to give a tight hug.

"Hey kiddo!" Naruto ruffled the boy's dark messy morning hair before he felt Sasuke gave a tap on the shoulder. The Uchiha had a straight expression before Naruto knew there was a serious matter on hand. When Minori let go and flung Naruto's front door open and saw Hinata, he ran for her and gave her a similar embrace.

"I need to show you something," Sasuke held a grim expression. Naruto aimed his gaze to Hinata when Sasuke asked him to follow him.

"Is this about Minori?" Naruto asked with a similar expression as Sasuke.

Sasuke could only nod when he ran to his office table, switching on his laptop, searching for the file he had saved the Word document of the translation at. Naruto stared in awe when Sasuke flustered over his office table while Sakura kept silent. She sat by the edge of the bed, staring at Sasuke who finally had a satisfied expression over his face when he finally found it. Sakura, on the other hand, could only walk away from the room then, with an unrecognizable expression. Sasuke tried to ignore it when Naruto had pointed it out.

When the Word document finally opened and Naruto read the first few lines, Sasuke just had to inwardly apologize to Sakura if she had to lose her high reputation of her high position. He knew how things would go when he showed Naruto the Word document and the events that would follow. Sasuke knew the chances of things for Sakura's career wouldn't go smoothly when they were to abide to Naruto's request.

But Sasuke knew he had to do it right.

And just like how Sasuke had planned, Naruto followed the script in Sasuke's mind. Naruto said the words that Sasuke knew he would say when the blonde read the whole translation.

"Cancel the adoption for Minori."

S/N: Now you've got a little hint from where Hinata got her fear of the dark now right? The plot thickens again. Whoops. And I'm just pointing out the fact that yeah, there are some little developments with Naruto and Hinata soon :)